A personal blog owned by Zilko, who regularly writes about his life, or anything that comes up to his mind

Tag Archives: Cooking

The theme of this Photo Tales post is my latest experiments in the kitchen!

Photo #93

A duck fillet steak experiment

My long weekend trip to Lyon gave me a kitchen experiment inspiration for a duck fillet steak. At the time it hit me how I could never think about it as it appeared not very complicated!

While the cooking part was not that complicated, indeed; the grocery shopping part was, haha 😆 . It appeared to me that duck meat was not *that* popular here in the Netherlands. I mean, the supermarket sold it; but it was not as “visible” and “plenty” as the other types of meat. As I could not find it in my first attempt, I resorted to Google to find out that the supermarket only sold one “type” of duck fillet. It was boxed and was put in a special chiller for boxed stuffs, haha. It certainly made the meat look more “premium”, though, and this might partly explain the price, haha.

Anyway, I liked it! Though I am not sure if I am going to cook it that often, due to the higher proportion of fat (thanks, my nutrition app). Even though this might be because of the skin; in which case the fat would not be a problem if I just ignored the skin. But you know, ignoring a crispy skin on your plate in front of you sounds like a difficult thing to do, haha 😆 .

Photo #94

A high protein meal experiment

Speaking of the nutrition app, aside from reducing my consumption of fat, I am also trying to increase my consumption of protein. And this motivated this experiment to cook the pictured high protein meat, haha.

Lean red meat is obviously low in fat and is delicious for a steak, so that is a given. And then we all know that tempe (I know it is spelled “tempeh” in English but it just feels weird for me to type so. So I am typing it in the original Indonesian spelling here 😛 ) is rich in protein. And before I moved to Amsterdam, my ex-housemate told me about the existence of this “bimi” vegetables, which is a hybrid between brocolli and kailan and also has high amount of protein.

Surprisingly (or not?), the dish worked well!! 😀 For this one, though, I am sure I am cooking this more often (at least more often than the duck fillet dish 😛 ).

The tataki beef dish I had during a night out last weekend with some friends in Rotterdam made a huge impression on me. It was so good that I became quite obsessed with it that I was looking for its recipe online just the day after 😆 .

And so, I made this week my experiment week on it, haha 😆 . I didn’t have that many trials because I don’t cook that often during the week anymore. So from this point of view of course I am still far away from producing great tataki. Nonetheless, overall I am quite happy with what my kitchen produced so far 😛 . Okay, the presentation could definitely improve a lot. But given that these were only for personal consumption (literally), that was not such a big deal, I guess 😛 .

A Vacation Season?

Anyway, for whatever reason it appeared that this week was a vacation season at my office. Most of my colleagues were gone on a week vacation! Haha 😆 . So as a result it felt a little bit quiet at the office. Though, for my work, this brought some extra advantage, on the other hand this was also a little bit frustrating because I had many questions on a problem I was working on because there were less people to ask! Haha 😆

Since 2013 when I tried to be a vegetarian for a week, which conclusion was that I was definitely not a vegetarian, lol 😆 , I have not conducted any other significant experiment with my food intake. Btw it might be important to mention that “an experiment” is not the same as “to pay attention to” because, especially in the last year or so, I have definitely monitored and controlled what I put in my body 🙂 .

Well, okay, that is only true if my avoidance of pork and ice cream for the last six months doesn’t count as an experiment though, haha 😆 . Yes, I have been avoiding pork and ice cream in the last half a year or so purely for health reason. It was not that I went to total pork and ice cream abstinence as it was practically impractical. There were a few instances where it was unavoidable to have some, of course, especially when I was travelling or the few cheat days here and there. But the bottom line is, I have been trying to avoid pork and ice cream and these two items have been out of my grocery list for most of the more than 180 days as of now 😛 .

A New Experiment and the Setup

Anyway, so this week I decided to conduct a new experiment. Knowing that I cannot live without meat, I was wondering if I could live without oil. This indeed implies that I was avoiding fried or sauted stuffs this week, usually the easiest (and my favorite 😛 ) way of cooking 😛 .

This experiment was also quite a challenge given that I live in the Netherlands now. You know, the Dutch like their food fried, haha 😆 . As a consequence, I had to really refrain myself when I was in some cafeterias where a lot of fried stuffs (like those delicious kaassouffle for example) were available.

The experiment went for about a week (I ended it yesterday). How did it go?

My Observations

Well, first of all, let me tell you that this experiment gave me an extra problem in the kitchen because now my options range was much more limited because I was avoiding oil in any form and source, haha 😆 . But it was not really a big problem given the very short duration of the experiment. Wow it would have been super challenging had this experiment been longer!

Okay, whatever. More importantly, how do/did I feel? Well, I was fine. I did not notice a lot of change in how I felt, except that somehow in general I felt a little bit hungrier than normal, lol 😆 . I haven’t checked whether this was a real correlation though.

I also lost 1 kg during the week but I was also exercising everyday (gym on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; and tennis on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday). So, again, the correlation needed to be checked further. Who knows conditional independence between the experiment and the weight loss holds here (okay, math stuff here 😛 ).

The most apparent change actually surfaced when I ended the experiment on Friday. Yesterday, I cooked battered beef with green beans and mushroom; so of course the beef was fried. Just after I finished my meal, my throat actually felt a little tiny bit sore. It was nothing major but it was enough to make me crave for some fresh fruit and you know fruit is expensive commodity here in Europe! So I guess even just after one week, my body has somewhat adjusted and just a normal oily dish became a little bit too oily already!

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, I can handle a no-oil week much much much better than a vegetarian week. This no-oil experiment had little to no effect on my mood (hence productivity at work), unlike that vegetarian experiment three years ago.

Will I do it again in the future? Well, judging from the outcome of this week, I have to say the answer is “yes, very likely“; even though I still have no idea when 😆 .

Btw, here are three dishes which I cooked this week. They involved no oil at all (and also no pork (and its derivatives) nor ice cream, of course 😛 ).

As I said last week, currently I am in the middle of a very busy period at work. I worked through the weekend last weekend and actually had a thought of possibly doing the same thing the next weekend (read: this weekend) too.

But then, as it turned out, I treated this weekend as how a weekend was supposed to be treated: by not going to work, haha. It was because of a combination of two main things though. First of all, I was able to negotiate a deadline extension so that gave me a bit of more room to breathe. And so as a result, at the moment actually I am in front for this deadline related work, because I progressed more than my target on my work during the last weekend. And second of all, and this was the bigger factor actually, my mind felt so exhausted on Friday. It just felt like my mind was not at a 100% condition at around 16:30 on Friday afternoon. At that time I was going to type an email containing brief report on my findings to a colleague and asking for a time for a discussion, such an easy task. But it took me really awhile to just write this email. I could barely think. Actually at that time I planned to stay until around 20:00 then went to the gym afterwards before going back home. But then I knew there was no way I could stay until 20:00 while at the same time being productive at work. So after finishing that email, I decided to go back home at the time I was supposed to go back home, at 17:00, haha 😛 .

Then I decided to rest my body and mind on Saturday. I decided to have a long sleep, which really helped btw; got up a little bit late and just enjoyed the rest of the day. The fact that the weather on Saturday was a perfect one helped a lot too! I played tennis in the afternoon with a friend and in the evening I watched the newest episode of The Amazing Race season 25 where the teams went from Morroco to Sicily, in Italy. Such a relaxing day!

Apparently my body was still quite tired on Sunday, as I had another long sleep in the night and got up quite late; which actually made me glad that in Europe, a weekday lasts for 5 out of the 7 days in a week. But I felt fresher, which was a good sign. I decided to still take it easy on Sunday. While doing a grocery shopping the evening before, I saw some packages of mussels in the supermarket. This reminded me of a recent post by Fe, who suggested me to try cooking the mussels dish myself at home. Well, since it was still a weekend, so I thought “Why not“, haha 😛 .

So on Sunday I also did a little experiment in the kitchen too with mussels (I bought a package of 1 kg only as it was only for myself); of course after looking at a few recipes in the internet. Indeed, it was not really a complicated dish to cook! Given the fact that it was the first time ever I cooked this dish, I think I did quite well; even though I did not have all the ingredients needed for the sauce (according to the recipe I found online), like red onion, shallots, and parsley. It was still quite nice 🙂 .

Internet and rendang? Well, what is the connection between those two in the context of this post? Well, nothing, actually, lol 😆 . As those are two totally unrelated stuffs which I still would like to write here now. My blog, my way, isn’t it? 😛 So anyway…

Internet

As I mentioned here when I just moved in to this apartment, I got free internet access at home. Yes, “free” as in we (‘we’ as in me and my housemates) don’t have to pay for it. And no, we are not being freeloaders by leeching on our neighbour’s wifi signal (Hell, you are being disrespectful if you think we were). So we got this free internet since I am officially employed by TU Delft. And one of the benefit they provide for their employees is free internet connection at home. Not bad, isn’t it?

Except that this benefit is going to end soon. 😦 Damn!! 😦 A few weeks ago, apparently we received a notification from TU Delft about this termination. Yes, “apparently” as in I also received the email but didn’t bother reading it since it looked like one of those monthly campus information email that I usually ignored 😳 (a bad habit, I know; but in the meantime I have been so busy with my work so, in my defense, I did not have the time to read it, haha 😛 ). But then a few days ago my housemate told me about this. Then I checked my mailbox and, yes, apparently it was true.

The reason for this was apparently a new working scheme that they are obligated to implement soon. So there are a few benefits that are being scrapped off, including this free internet access at home. They said in the email too that this new scheme would result in a few new benefits though. But I still do not know what those benefits are.

But whatever, the main point for now is, this free internet access will only last through this December. Actually, this service is provided by an internet company which has a cooperation with TU Delft. So basically what they did thus far is that we have our internet connection at home, and TU Delft pays for it. So that is why it is “free” for us. So, after a short discussion, we agree to still keep this internet access from this company at our place; except that starting in January, we will have to pay for it ourselves. The price is good and we don’t have to deal with the hustle in finding a new internet company, making an appointment for installation, etc, etc.

Rendang

Anyway, moving on to an unrelated subject, last week was a super busy week for me. And it happened that beef was on quite some discount in the supermarket last week. Plus, I have read a few times here and there that rendang is one of those meals which can last days. So as a result of all these different factors, I have been consuming quite a lot of rendang lately, haha 😛 .

It was very practical, indeed. I only needed to cook once and it could last for about three days. Btw, I kept the rendang in the chiller of my fridge. And every time I was about to have a meal, I just needed to warm it up in the oven. And here, lately, I learned that warming meals up also required some skills, apparently (well, obviously). Too short in the oven, obviously the rendang was still too chill. Too long in the oven, the rendang turned into beef jerky, lol 😆 .

As promised and before it is becoming too late, so here are the story about my birthday this year 🙂 . In principal, I can group the story into three different days, and here we go.

Sunday

Sunday was the actual day of my birthday. It was just a normal Sunday though, except that I treated this Sunday a little bit differently than the other regular Sundays. I started the day by (well, after getting the birthday greetings from my housemates) cooking myself a fried noodle dish for brunch. This (having fried noodles on my birthday) has kinda been my way of starting my birthday for ages now, haha 😛 .

Then for dinner I wanted to have some steak with wine, just like last year. Actually on Friday I already did some grocery-shopping for the week but when I did, I was not thinking to treat this Sunday specially. So I ended up not having the ingredients I needed for the dinner. So on Saturday evening I went to the supermarket again; and to buy a bottle of Port wine too (which happened to have a 20% alcohol content but it tasted sweeter than normally 😛 ) . And I decided to buy a small fruit cake as well; just to make the Sunday a little bit more special 🙂 .

In the evening, I watched the women’s singles final of the 2014 US Open where Serena Williams claimed her 6th US Open title, and her 18th grandslam singles title! What a birthday present! 😀

Tuesday

I was actually organizing a small dinner party with a few of my friends on Saturday. But one of them could not come because she had to go to the US for a vacation; so she suggested to go out on Tuesday evening with another friend. Which I obviously accepted 😀 .

We finally tried that one Thai restaurant in the centrum! We have actually been wanting to go there but on each time we passed it, it was always full (it was not a big restaurant). And finally now we got the chance!! Hahaha 😆 . The restaurant was quite unique though in the sense that we could not choose our dish, as it was already a package, and there was only one package. So, aside from choosing your drink, you literally just need to sit there and they will serve you right away with the food 😛 .

The food was a three course Thai (or Asian) meal. For appetizer, we had a Thai soup, which was quite nice. It was not the tomyam soup though. For main course, we had a four small portions of different dishes with rice. And for dessert, we had something which was very similar to jenang in Indonesia. It was very very nice. And the price was very good too! So I am happy 😀 .

From there, we went to a bar nearby and stayed there until around 23:00 🙂 .

Saturday

On Saturday I organized the aforementioned birthday dinner; and by this I mean I cooked everything. I decided to go with fried noodles and rendang this time. And for the rendang, it was a more special one as I brought the (instant) sauce from Indonesia 😀 . And I have to say that it was the best rendang I have ever cooked in my entire life, haha 😛 . Yeah, it was a very nice evening 🙂 .

Wow, the entire week this week has been a week with full of stories. Seriously! There are two stories which each, I think, deserves its own post, so I keep them for a bit later; and here are a few of them which are more “daily”.

Really hot…

I know it is summer now, but even for summer standard, the temperature in the Netherlands this week has been amongst its hottest days. Not overwhelmingly nor uncharacteristically hot though, but it was very hot (and humid). Which was fine; except that, well, the air-conditioner in my office was broken for two straight days during these hottest days! Damn!! 😦

Now I know how the other PhDs in Delft (whose offices are in other buildings) feel during summer. At least I am lucky enough that my office building is one of the newest buildings in TU Delft so each room has an air-conditioner. Other PhDs that I know, well, their offices don’t have air-conditioners! Under this condition, our offices basically turned into big greenhouses where the heat was trapped inside it and, as a result, made it even hotter inside! And well, working in such a hot condition is not fun at all! At least to me. It made me much more difficult to concentrate; even I could not think as fast as I normally could, haha 😆 .

Speaking of the heat, I went to Den Haag on Saturday where it was also very hot. At one point, the temperature hit 35°C! 😯 The weather was actually quite nice in the afternoon though. Okay, even though I said it was very hot, it was actually more like the hotter side of “warm”. It was still hot; but not unbearingly hot. I took the tram to go to Den Haag and the tram was packed with people (and there was no air-conditioner inside the tram too btw). At first I was surprised with the amount of people who were travelling to Den Haag; until I realized the final destination of the tram was Scheveningen (a popular beach area in the outskirt of Den Haag). Oh, that must be why! Maybe I should have made a plan to go to Scheveningen when the weather was like this too! Hahaha 😆 .

Bucatini

I have a new favorite type of pasta after my visit to Rome in December 2010: bucatini. To me, bucatini is like the most delicious pasta ever. Cook any pasta meal, if you use bucatini as the pasta, it will taste even more delicious! My brother and I tested this hypothesis two years later during our visit to Rome in December 2012. We ordered bucatini carbonara and spaghetti carbonara from the same restaurant. And, indeed, the bucatini carbonara was much more delicious than the already very delicious spaghetti carbonarra, hahaha 😆 .

Btw, for you who are foreign with bucatini, bucatini is a type of pasta which looks like spaghetti but the diameter is a little bit thicker and there is a tiny hole in the middle. To me, this thickiness is the factor that makes me find bucatini much more delicious than spaghetti 🙂 .

Even so, I have not had the luck with bucatini in the Netherlands. Ever since that year-end 2010 Italy trip, I had not found bucatini anywhere in the Netherlands. Well, until Tuesday last week. When I decided to stop by at a supermarket, I saw a box of bucatini! Yay!! Finally!!! 😀 So obviously I bought one. The day after, I changed my cooking plan for the day (I planned to cook fried chicken fillet with rucola) to pasta! Hahaha 😆 . And indeed, it was so delicious! 🙂